Dallas has the best audiences

So... having attended concerts in Houston, Austin, and many in Dallas, and seeing the musicians' responses I think I've determined that Dallas has the best audiences. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Allison Moyet of Yaz, and Ed Kowalczyk of Live all seemed particularly enthralled by the crowd response at their respective shows here in Dallas.

For some reason...

I have three "for some reason(s)..."

1. For some reason I didn't sleep much last night. I went and played mini golf with the travel meetup, met some new people and lots of fun was had there, and maybe I was all riled up from that, or maybe I was all riled up thinking about all the trip possibilities [now that I'm an assistant organizer for that group.] I got home a little after ten, and was in bed by about 10:30pm, but was wide awake. I couldn't turn it off... so I got up and got on the computer for a while, and eventually got back in bed about 11:30 or so. Then I woke up about 5:15 this morning. I tried for about 15 minutes to fall back asleep, but couldn't so I just gave up, got ready, and came to work! I clocked in here at 6:40am. I'm sure in a few hours I'm going to be so dead tired I won't even be able to stand it.

2. For some reason it smelled like skunk INSIDE the entry of the office today. [Dwight... what have you been up to?]

3. For some reason I can't log in to the imaging system where I need to log in in order to do any work here... so thus, I'm writing a blog! Hooray!

catching up

so... again, it's been a while since I last posted... I can get lazy about updating my blog [as you may have already noticed.]

The main point of this entry is to recap the road trip I took with my travel group back on Feb 6-8.

Friday night we get picked up in our carpools and meet in downtown Fort Worth at a Chipotle there. I had already eaten before I got picked up, so I was just hanging out. One other car had arrived before the car I was riding in and when we got there they were already proposing a little detour to the carnival that was going on just down the street. Well, after we got the message that one of the other cars had gotten a flat en route and they would be delayed about an hour, Brian, Andrew, Angela, Misty, and I all headed over to the carnival. It was free to get in - so bonus there. Brian paid for a ride called "the Kamikaze" for all of us. It was crazy fun. After that we wandered around and then ended up getting a funnel cake. I had never had one before. Sure, I had seen them around, but never sampled one myself. As we were finishing up our funnel cakes and walking back toward the car we got texts and calls that we'd better get our butts back to Chipotle, since the other car had arrived and the group was ready to go. When we got out to Abilene the owner of the guest houses gave us a guided tour. They were VERY nice. If you ever have occasion to go to Abilene with a group [I know, why would you?] I would HIGHLY recommend these guest houses. Our group occupied all 3 of the houses. That night we all ended up in house #3 [we referred to them based on the order they were shown to us on the tour] and ended up playing a rather rousing game of taboo. The most fun part of that was yelling out fake 'funny' answers when it was the other team's turn - to throw them off their game. Ahh, good times.

Saturday was our 'photo scavenger hunt.' The goal was to take pictures of Texas redneck/country things such as: a dead animal, cactus, windmill, historical marker, sign with the word "gun" on it, etc. The list had at least 30 or 40 items. We divided into 4 groups of 4 and went separate ways. We all met up in San Angelo for lunch, and then went back out for more photos. We met again at a steakhouse for dinner in "Buffalo Gap." That evening we reviewed and had some good laughs at the photos - and counted up all the points - with some hotly debated items... After the photo sharing there was fun of all kinds in all places. One group member brought the whole Rock Band package with the X-box, so there was always that going on [with certain instances of horrible singing.] There was a lot of sitting around socializing, and just before midnight I instigated a polar bear swim in the pool at house #1, and got a few other willing participants to join me. And of course, there was also a "throwing in fully clothed" incident or two... or three... Good times.

Sunday was kind of a "take it easy" day. We got IHOP takeout for breakfast and played RockBand some more, then drove home in the afternoon. Definitely a fun and VERY memorable trip. Photos can be seen here.

they fired my friend...

Well, work became a little less fun and magical this week as the manager, operating under heavy influence from the team lead, fired my friend Alicia. She hadn't been there very long, relatively speaking. She, like me, started as a temp from K-Force, and then went permanent. Her work was good - once she learned all the systems she didn't really make any errors. She and I hung out many times outside of work and got to be really good friends. Neither she nor I can really figure out exactly why they fired her - it came totally out of left field.

ahhh 3 day weekends... never get tired of 'em

What a nice 3 day weekend...

Friday night I went to dinner at Cici's with my friend Bryan and then we went to see the movie 'Role Models' at the dollar theater. Pretty funny.

Saturday I played frisbee with my Ultimate Frisbee Meetup Group. 3 other guys showed up, so we had just a "practice" since there weren't enough people to have an actual game, but hopefully when warmer weather rolls around we'll have a big enough membership to get some games going. Then in the evening it was my friend Tony's birthday so I met him and his friends at Texas Land & Cattle for dinner, and then after we went to the clubs and danced. It was fun, and I can't wait for the smoking ban to go into effect in April! [Some chick burned my arm with her cigarette because she wasn't paying attention to where she was holding it. Grrrr. Although it stung for a while, at least it didn't leave a mark.]

Sunday I spent most of the day lazing around the apt, but in the late afternoon I finally got off my tail and went out for a bike ride. It was a lot colder than I had anticipated, but I still went for about 2 hours - did probably 20 miles. My friend Trent invited me to his place after that, where we soaked in the hot tub for a while [which was much needed, after my bike ride] and then watched Simpsons and the previous night's Saturday Night Live.

Today I actually got my act together and got all the clutter on my desk and around my apartment in general cleaned up, and tonight I might just have a date...

frustrations

Arg... today sucked.

Work was mostly ok, except that it was slow [didn't have a lot to do most of the day - which makes the time go by slower] and I was SUPER tired. There were a few times it was really hard to stay awake. Although I got enough sleep last night, I had stayed up too late both Friday and Saturday nights, so tonight will be catch-up if I can make it to bed in time [I guess that depends on how long I take to rant about my stuff here...]

So when I get out of work and start my car up my 'tire pressure indicator' light comes on. I bust out my trusty cigarette lighter powered air compressor and get to work on the tires. When I get around to the front passenger side I find that while it's not flat, it IS completely bald. No tread left. Not showing cord yet, but no tread left [which is not great since it's cold and rainy here right now.] This annoys me because that tire has no more than 23,000 miles on it since that's all the car has. It's also possible that was one of the tires that had to be replaced in my accident repairs, in which case it didn't even last 13,000 miles, because my accident was right around 10K. So I drive to Sam's to see about getting a new tire. The guy there didn't seem to have his crap together and I wasn't totally sold, so I went on to NTB. The guy there was knowledgeable and I ended up getting two tires because the other front one [driver's side] really didn't have much tread left either. Just the other day when hanging out with my friends Danny and Craig they related their experience with having to get new tires for their Acura. Apparently car and tire companies have conspired together to create a new breed of tire and force them on people who like nice cars. They're called V-rated tires - they cost more, and wear out faster because they are "softer." But to switch to a lower rating of tire you would have to replace all 4 at the same time. So anyway, like my Acura friends, I'm stuck with V-rated tire choices. They get the old tires off and look at the wear on them and tell me my alignment may need adjustment. So they put it on their fancy computer that shows the alignment, and of course, the front end is way off - so there's another $80 on top of the $275 for the tires. I walk out of there having dropped around $360 or so and by this time it's about 6pm and I'm already hungry. [I had left work just before 4:30pm.] But I was determined to get to the gym and at least do something there, and it was just around the corner from the tire place.

So I get there and can't decide what I want to do, but settle on just swimming laps. Well, a few weeks back I was doing some weight stuff and my right shoulder started hurting. Since then whenever I've done anything with weights my shoulder starts to hurt again, so whenever it does I avoid activities that would stress it until the hurt goes away. It had been long enough I didn't figure there would be any problem. Wrong. It start hurting about 10 minutes into my swimming. I did another 5 minutes just doing a one-armed side-stroke [not using my right arm for that one] and then quit. By the time I got dressed and out of the gym it was after 7pm and I was starving. I knew I had salad at home, so I could eat that, but I didn't have any protein [meat] so I would have to stop at the store for that. Foolishly, I chose Walmart.

Now... I think all decent people hate Walmart, for varying reasons, but everyone still goes there because it's cheap. My reason for hating it is usually the other "patrons" one encounters there as well as the cashiers. Today was an especially bad example. I get my three things - a bunch of bananas, a single steak packet, and a little bag of baby carrots and go to the "express lane." I always avoid the self-check option when I have fruit to be weighed [bananas.] There are only 2 'speed' lanes open, and as I walk up one of them has the dreaded "flashing light" which translates into 'I've got a high-maintenance customer and this is going to take a while' so I go to the other lane. There is a woman with her boy there and they don't seem to have much stuff. What I didn't realize at first glance was that this woman had apparently seen more that she wanted than her bank account could handle, so the transaction they were performing when I first came up was actually reversing the first iteration of her transaction. Then they had to ring up the stuff she could afford [while her boy, in the meantime, tried to balance the reject stuff she couldn't pay for on top of a display next to the cashier stand that was taller than he was, so it fell down all over the place.] Anyway, the cashier finishes the 2nd ring up and the lady takes an inordinate amount of time to run her card through the machine [honestly, how hard is it? apparently very, watching this chick.] So then I think they're done, and now it will be my turn. Wrong. The cashier turns on the flashing light and after looking for a manager for a minute or two, walks off to get one. [The chick has already wandered toward the manager stand] and at that point I'm like... [there are no words - only rage feelings]

So I go in search of another line. I find another line with only one person who has but a few items and I think I've struck gold. As I stand there waiting behind this person, I realize that the cashier is not wearing anything that would indicate he is a Walmart employee. He is also quietly, but still very audibly, singing to himself - with a very mumbley African accent - songs that seemed to be something about Jesus. The person in front of me finishes their transaction and leaves, and it is my turn. As he scans my items and rings me up, he does not even pause once in his Jesus singing. No conversation or anything - he's COMPLETELY in his own little praise-Jesus world. I run my card in the little thing and it says "ask cashier to press credit key" which I try to do, but can't manage to get out any real words because I'm so overcome by the complete and utter bat-shit-crazy that is coming from across the counter. I get my items and walk away and feel a little bit sorry for the poor people in line behind me who must also then deal with that dangerously insane individual. I thought about alerting the management to the fact that they were employing[?] someone who belonged in a padded room, but then I remembered it was Walmart...

And of course, when I get home and go in my kitchen I remember that I am out of milk...

On the plus side, however, I built an excellent fire in my fireplace which only took one light and it was raging in no time. So I think I'll sit there and bask, while listening to my iTunes on shuffle for a little bit before I head to bed...

I'll just have oatmeal [made with water] in the morning and hopefully remember to stop and get milk before I get home tomorrow...

forgot to eat...

Today I had lots of fun - my travel group had a local activity. We went to lunch together first at a place called Obzeet [generally a very weird place with somewhat spotty and unfriendly service, but good food] and then we went to an ice rink and went ice skating - something I couldn't even tell you when the last time was that I went, but probably at least 15 years ago. The last time I was even on an ice rink at all was playing broom ball back in '01.

The first pair of skates they gave me at the rental counter were figure skates made from hard plastic, with buckles similar to ski boots. Although there was a cushy lining inside the skates, as soon as I got out on the ice I immediately felt all kinds of pain, as they were very uncomfortable. I fell once, and then other members of the group, seeing the plastic skates, recommended I go get a pair of lace-ups, which I did. This time they gave me hockey skates [with no toe pick.] Those were more comfortable, and I got out on the ice and made it a lap or two before falling again. It was pretty hard to get back up with those skates on, but I eventually did, and didn't fall again the whole rest of the time. I started getting the hang of it a little by the end - not trying anything fancy, by any means, but was doing better than where I started out. After that some of the members went to Blue Goose Cantina and we hung out talking for a while. I left at 4 to take my friend Chris to the airport for his trip to Germany to spend Xmas with his parents.

I got my car washed on the way home [the winter weather had made it unbearably dirty over the past week and I paid for the $3 wash with the change in my ashtray.] Once I got home I got on the internet and started planning my trip to Austin for the Brazilian Carnaval they have there. It was cold in my apartment so I also got a little fire raging. As I was sitting at the computer planning away I started feeling a little weird. I assumed it was because I was cold [the computer is not near the fireplace] so I went and warmed myself by the fire for a little while. The feeling didn't go away. I took me a minute or two, but I realized I hadn't eaten anything since lunch, and it was now 8:30pm. I usually eat every 4 hours. So I ate some baby carrots, and quickly popped a pot-pie in the microwave and fixed my blood sugar levels. :) Now I'm going to lie by the fire and watch a movie.